People are nice here imo
Yes. The people here are neat.
Not really, but also kind of all the time. I’m mostly here for memes and shitposts, just as a kind of substitute for actually having friends, and its doing that pretty well.
Nothing truly productive or useful, in the sense of somethings changed my beliefs for the better, or I feel ive made a positive contribution. Its been pretty negative in that sense, as the politically minded people online will jump at you if they suspect wrongthink, so ive learned to just avoid them as much as I can help.
This place is mostly doing exactly what I want it to most of the time though so its good.
Groups about animals, food & drinks are pretty chill and good places to have enjoyable conversation.
Gotten anything positive out of interacting with other users?
You bet. All the time!
I feel belonging. In addition, whenever someone tells me they find what I say helpful, it feels great!
I think Lemmy also helps me calibrate my sensors that sense the world. I know what software’s doing well, what software’s not doing so well, and what software is complex.
yes quite regularly. i wouldn’t be here otherwise… this place feels much less toxic than most other places online too.
though tbh it does feel like an echo chamber sometimes. i tend to agree with far too many things i read here compared to other places.
Tons of them. Just today I taught one person about bird biology in regards to feather replacement and another I am helping prepare their family farm to hopefully host a barn owl nest we desperately need in our state.
It is also due to the great conversations I had here with people everyday that encouraged me to get involved with wildlife rehabilitation 2 years ago and it’s been one of the greatest adventures in my life. Everyone has been so supportive and has helped me develop my knowledge by asking great questions and sharing their enthusiasm with me about so many beautiful animals.
I’ve also participated in some political threads when the events were local and I’d been able to add nuance to the conversation. The trick is to just read the room and see if the thread is already trending hostile and just learn who is here to be combative vs to have real discussions.
I also just try to not be a jerk myself. I said something yesterday that got a more outspoken communists a bit insulated and I explained what my point of the original comment was a bit better and they calmed down when they saw I wasn’t being insulting to their beliefs.
I just use the same guidelines for conversation I would in real life here, and almost all my interactions here are positive ones.
Regularly. Given your question, I imagine that hasn’t been your experience.
What sort of responses are you getting? Do those responses seem typical for the community? Or are they more negative than usual?
I’ve had many positive interactions with other users on Lemmy and piefed—across various communities.
I really appreciate the Fediverse, but unfortunately I’m also familiar with the phenomenon where people go along with the majority and downvote comments or posts just because the opinion expressed doesn’t match their own.
I think the developers of reddit clones like Lemmy should change the system so that downvotes are only available to users who have already contributed helpful posts or comments.
The requirements for this should be left to the community.
In my opinion, this would significantly reduce the burdensome negativity of apps of this kind, and the discussions would be better. This is all the more true in the Fediverse, since it is much easier here to create multiple accounts to influence the discourse.
It would likely also prevent the inevitable misunderstanding that downvotes on reddit clones like Lemmy are not intended to express disapproval, but rather to flag a post or comment that are unhelpful, nonsensical, offensive, deceptive, or malicious—in short, not conducive to the discussion.
There are instances that don’t allow downvotes at all.
The shitposting is 🧑🍳🤌💋
Lots of funny, good natured people just doing the meme thing.
I have, I’ve had several turn from relatively hostile to productive. Usually I just end up understanding their argument better, but that’s still nice. For reference, these are usually about fairly contentious topics. It’s one of the things that I like the most about this site.
The womensstuff community has been quite a positive corner of the fediverse for me.
I’ve also had great chats about music, punk specifically, and food with other lemmings.
I see you in that community a lot. I can’t participate in it myself, but it is always interesting reading it and seeing perspectives so different from my own. I’m glad you find it enjoyable enough to contribute to the space and keep it alive.
Someone taught me private space and profile best practices in GrapheneOS today. Really useful information.
Saving that 😄
Yes, advice from Lemmy helped me sort out my HRT regimen, and it’s made a huge quality of life improvement for me :-)
Likewise, the community on blahaj has been so supportive and helpful as I’ve figured out my gender and started transitioning! It’s a great space
Oh that’s awesome - well done on starting your journey!
I had a great discussion on Mastodon about the logic of making bike helmets a legal requirement or not. I learned a lot and actually changed my mind on the subject…
Unheard of! You are the chosen one!
So do you think they should be a legal requirement or not?
No. Obviously I think if you can wear them you should, but making them required reduces the willingness of people to cycle, so as a strategy for swapping from car to bike, it is less effective.
I became a true believer in the pathway to a communist society. At very least I now understand how capitalism is so often doomed from within.
